A financial independence journey fueled by passive income

BIP.UN.TO

A quick update on three recent purchases in my portfolio. One of these three purchases is a new company in my portfolio. This is a company that I have been obsessively reading about for months now and finally decided that I need to own a piece of it. As a growth-focused company, this may not appear cheap for value investors, but the company has a proven track record of amazing capital allocation, diligent screening process for its growth through acquisitions, a legendary leader, cornering various niche markets…and the list goes on.

A quick update on a couple of purchases in our portfolios. It is getting harder and harder to find good value plays as the market seems be pushing the boundaries on the valuation front. With a lot of stocks trading close to 52-week highs, pickings have been pretty slim. However, due to an oversized cash position, I decided to pay up on a couple of strong companies and add to my existing positions.

A quick update on a couple of recent purchases in my portfolio. For this round, I added to existing positions.

First purchase: I added 48 shares of Brookfield Infrastructure Partners (BIP.UN.TO) @ $50.00. There’s been significant pullback lately and after waiting a long time to add more shares in this, I finally got the opportunity. I had a lowball offer sitting open on this company for a while and it was triggered yesterday when the stock fell below $50.00 mark. The stock currently yields close to 5% and is a dividend grower, while providing excellent infrastructure exposure around the world. BIP has a 10-yr dividend growth track record. The 1-, 3-, and 5-yr dividend growth rates are 12.5%, 10.8%, and 11.7% respectively.

Second purchase: I added 50 shares of Canadian Utilities (CU.TO) @ $32.92. The utilities sector has been in pressure as the interest rates are rising providing investors with better risk-free return. However, I think this presents a good opportunity to buy companies in this space currently. The current yield is hovering close to 5% and the company has a long track record of increasing dividends year after year. In fact, it occupies the top spot in the Canadian Dividend All Star list, with a 46-yr dividend increase streak.The 1-, 3-, 5- and 10-yr dividend growth rates are 10%, 10.1%, 10.1%, and 8.6% respectively. Not bad at all for a 5% yielder!

Third purchase: I added 100 shares of Fairfax India Holdings (FIH.U.TO) @ US$17.20. This was the third iteration of purchasing and I am far from being done accumulating this company. The company provides a great way to invest in India and has plenty of great investments already for a 3 year old holding company. I wrote about this company in the past here. No dividend from this company — the company follows the Berkshire Hathaway model and all funds are reinvested.

Full Disclosure: Long BIP.UN.TO, CU.TO, FIH.U.TO. Our full list of holdings is available here.

Brookfield Infrastructure Partners L.P. (BIP.UN.TO/BIP) announced a 7.55% increase in its cash dividend. The quarterly cash dividend will increase from $0.53 to $0.57 per share and payable on Mar 31, 2016 to shareholders on record as of Feb 29, 2016.

Even though I own the Canadian listed stock (BIP.UN.TO), the dividends are issued in US$, as all financials with Brookfield Infrastructure are in US$-terms. All currency terms used here refer to US$.

Brookfield Infrastructure Partners is a Dividend Challenger and this is the 9th consecutive annual dividend increase. The annual dividend rate goes up from $2.12 to $2.28. Yield going forward based on today’s closing price is 6.58%.

“After a good year in 2015, our business is well positioned to prosper in 2016. Our operations are performing well, our balance sheet is strong and we have almost $3 billion of liquidity,” said Sam Pollock, CEO of Brookfield Infrastructure. “With our unique internally generated organic growth and ability to recycle capital, we will continue to generate steady, predictable growth. We are also enthusiastic about the potential for value based transactions in Brazil and North American energy infrastructure in the years ahead that would be highly profitable for the business.”